Teaching Mathematics for Conceptual Understanding: Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices and the Role of Constraints

Abstract

A major influence on mathematics teachers’ instruction is their beliefs. However, teachers’ instructional practices do not always neatly align with their beliefs because of factors perceived as constraints. The purpose of this article is to introduce a new approach for examining the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices, an approach that focuses on specific instructional practices that support the development of students’ conceptual understanding and on mismatches that occur between what teachers believe to be important and what they report actually doing in the classroom. We also examine the relationship between teachers’ self-reported constraints and mismatches between teachers’ beliefs and practices.